


Another Brick in the Wall

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Foxtrot [77]
Category: First Monday, Sisters (1991 TV), Stargate Atlantis, Thoughtcrimes (2003)
Genre: Crossover, Gen, not actually RPF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-19
Updated: 2016-03-19
Packaged: 2018-05-27 16:50:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6292339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the comment_fic prompt: <i>Stargate Atlantis, John Sheppard, The Wall [Pink Floyd].</i> John and the imprints during The Long Goodbye. Finally they learn to work together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Another Brick in the Wall

_I can do this,_ John thought. _Not a problem. Atlantis will back me up. What's one more imprint?_

Thelan wasn't just an imprint. He was enormous, unstoppable, his presence overwhelming, impenetrable. One moment John was opening his mouth to say something to Elizabeth, the next he was thrown backward into his own mind as a wall slammed down. It was endlessly high and endlessly long and John didn't know what to do.

"Think we can break it?"

John jumped, spun around. And stared. His imprints were arrayed behind him, all of them, every version of him that had ever been. Except for Joe, who'd never been him. Had the imprints been part of Joe instead?

It was Brendan who'd spoken, the NSA agent.

"We have a problem," Julian said.

"You think?" John demanded. "I want my body back!"

Joe lifted his chin defiantly. "We're just trying to help."

"Guys," Brian said. He and Julian were staring at the wall. "Phoebus was lying. She and Thelan aren't husband and wife."

Thelan's murderous intent washed over them, a fetid stench mingled with the sour scent of hate.

But Phoebus in Elizabeth's body called Thelan in John's husband, stepped closer, pulled him into a kiss –

All of the imprints flinched back, and John was struck with a thousand different memories of kisses, of someone else in his body kissing someone who'd paid for the right to violate him, body and soul.

Thelan was impressed with how far Phoebus was taking this deception, that she'd kiss her mortal enemy.

John could only imagine the horror Elizabeth had to be feeling, at having her body be used like this. He wanted to retch. But he wasn't real. He was just an imprint. He had no body. The nausea roiling in his gut was completely imaginary.

Traci, pink-haired and bright-eyed and too curvy to be a man, slung an arm around his shoulders. "Hey, easy there. We need you to keep it together. You're a soldier."

"Not the only soldier," one of the other imprints pointed out.

"We need to take the wall down." Brendan reached out, ran his hands over it. "Come on."

"How are we supposed to do that?" Julian asked.

Joe drew back, cocked his fist, and then punched as hard as he could. John shuddered when he heard the grinding of bone on bone, but Joe shook it off.

"Not a real body. Not real pain." He nudged the brick dust that had landed at his virtual feet. "The wall can be damaged. We can break it down."

Brendan moved to stand beside Joe. He wound up and punched. More brick dust flew. "All right. Let's do this."

One by one, the other imprints stepped forward, began chipping away at the wall. John watched, horrified, as Thelan attacked John's own men, as he terrorized his way through the city, but he joined the others, hacking at the wall over and over and over again, and it began to come down.

It was Brendan who managed to clamber over first, who knew to play dead so Teyla would give him a stunner to use on Phoebus in Elizabeth.

It was Joe who whispered, while John lay in the infirmary avoiding Elizabeth's gaze, "Let us help you."

It was Songwriter who said, "All in all, you're just another brick in the wall." And John realized that he'd done to the others what Thelan had done to him.

So he said, "All right. Let's work together."


End file.
